News » flexible electronicshttp://www.utexas.edu/news/
The University of Texas at AustinTue, 03 Mar 2015 23:05:09 +0000enhourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1Four UT Austin Engineers Receive NSF CAREER Awardshttp://www.utexas.edu/news/2014/03/31/nsf-career-awards/
http://www.utexas.edu/news/2014/03/31/nsf-career-awards/#commentsMon, 31 Mar 2014 14:31:27 +0000Sandra Zaragozahttp://www.utexas.edu/news/2014/03/30/» Continue Reading]]>Four faculty members from the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin have been selected to receive Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Awards totaling $1.8 million from the National Science Foundation. Since 2012, 14 Cockrell School faculty members have received CAREER Awards.

The awards will fund engineering research that has the potential to push the wearable electronics market forward, provide statistical insight into the world’s river deltas, reduce network congestion and develop more efficient materials for flexible electronics. This year’s recipients are Nanshu Lu, Evdokia Nikolova, Paola Passalacqua and Yaguo Wang.

The awards are the most prestigious offered by NSF’s CAREER Program, providing up to five years of funding to junior faculty members who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of their organizations’ missions.

“For any engineer, an NSF CAREER Award is a tremendous recognition of one’s research and ability to provide solutions to real-world challenges,” said interim Dean Sharon L. Wood. “We are extremely proud of all four of the Cockrell School’s 2014 award recipients. Their early success is a testament to the school’s commitment to developing the educators, researchers and engineering leaders of the future.”

The four Cockrell School faculty members who received awards:

Nanshu Lu, an assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics, was awarded for research that could lead to wearable electronics powered by the mechanical energy of body motion. The purpose of this research project is to enhance electromechanical coupling, the process that transforms a mechanical action into an electrical impulse or vice versa, at a nanoscale level. If successful, the proposed research will enable better-performing nanoelectrical systems. The ultimate goal is to help develop high-quality, multifunctional flexible electronics in forms that can conform to the surfaces of the human body for sensing, stimulating and energy harvesting. As part of the project, Lu will provide research opportunities for undergraduate and high school students.

Evdokia Nikolova, assistant professor in the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering, received her award for research that has the potential to reduce traffic and cellphone congestion through improving the way computer networks assess risk and account for how humans make decisions under uncertainty. Her project is focused on developing new computer algorithms and tools to minimize risk in various sectors, including transportation, telecommunications and energy. Nikolova's interdisciplinary approach brings together computer science, operations research, economics and finance. Part of this research has been adapted in the MIT CarTel system, a research project addressing transportation issues, and will be incorporated into a new interdisciplinary course for undergraduate and graduate students.

Paola Passalacqua, assistant professor in the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, was awarded for her research project focused on deltas, which are landforms at the mouths of rivers, where rivers flow into oceans, seas, lakes or reservoirs. There are approximately half a billion people who live on or near deltas around the world. Deltas are fragile yet resilient, capable of adapting to changing environments and recovering from damage caused by extreme events such as storms. Passalacqua and her team are developing image analysis and statistical tools that will provide detailed information about the deltas, and how humans and climate shifts affect them. These tools will be released as open source software and will be integrated into undergraduate and graduate coursework. As part of the project, a science/visual arts course aimed at high school students will be developed to address environmental problems such as coastal restoration.

Yaguo Wang, assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, was awarded for her research on quasi-particles, called phonons, usually found in solid crystal structures and known for their major heat-carrying properties. Gaining a better understanding of phonons could lead to faster, more efficient materials for energy conversion, electronics and other devices. The goal is to better predict and measure how phonons will carry heat in different nanomaterials, such as semiconductor nanoparticles, so that designs for these materials can be improved. The project will address fundamental heat transport problems encountered in a wide variety of disciplines including thermoelectrics, semiconductor lasers and infrared detectors. The new discoveries gained from this research will be integrated into an existing undergraduate course and used to develop a new graduate course.

]]>http://www.utexas.edu/news/2014/03/31/nsf-career-awards/feed/045159nsf-career-awardsnsf-career-awards2014The University of Texas at Austin Licenses Method that Speeds Electronics Manufacturing to Versatilishttp://www.utexas.edu/news/2009/07/13/electronics_manufacturing/
http://www.utexas.edu/news/2009/07/13/electronics_manufacturing/#commentsMon, 13 Jul 2009 19:19:35 +0000Tim Greenhttp://www.utexas.edu/news/?p=8318» Continue Reading]]>The University of Texas at Austin has licensed a time-saving technology for electronics manufacturing to Versatilis LLC of Shelburne, Vt.

The technology, a dual-tone photoresist that saves steps in the manufacturing process, was developed by Dr. Grant Willson, a professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering, and his students under a development agreement with Versatilis.

The license gives Versatilis exclusive, worldwide rights to the technology.

The technology aids a unique method of photolithography used in electronics. Versatilis originally developed the novel photolithography method under a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) contract.

The underlying technology eliminates costly masking steps and problems encountered in attempting photolithography on flexible substrates. It uses multiple wavelengths of light to capture multiple patterns in photoresist layers simultaneously rather than through a repetitive, sequential process as is conventionally done.

The dual-tone photoresist developed by Willson's laboratory combines two photoresist layers into one that can capture such images, further saving steps in the overall process.

"We are delighted to have participated in this innovative development," Willson said. "The novel process not only has a broad range of applications, but it can also reduce the costs of photolithography in electronics."

Wei-Lun (Kane) Jen, a graduate student in the Department of Chemical Engineering, was instrumental in developing the technology.

Versatilis had developed the process over several years, working closely also with Professor Miltos Hatalis and his research group at Lehigh University.

Applications for the technology span several markets, but the original idea was to lower the cost of manufacturing high performing electronics on large area, flexible substrates. This is a field DARPA refers to as "macroelectronics," which could lead to applications such as phased array antennas that could be rolled up or folded for easy transportation, or unfurled in space or carried on high altitude aircraft.

More immediately, the company is involved in aiding the manufacturing of flexible displays and has several running projects with DARPA and Army Research Labs for enabling such displays for future soldiers.

"We believe this technology can save manufacturing steps and improve yields in a number of current display applications such as LCDs, but where it will really shine is in next generation OLED (organic light emitting diode) and flexible display manufacturing," said George Powch, Versatilis president and chief executive.

He said that the technology enables roll-to-roll manufacturing of flexible electronics.